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Hoem said the student-led conference changes people’s lives and improves the community.

“This gift is amazing. It will change people’s lives. It will improve the community. We are so thankful for the donor’s generosity,” Hoem said.

The conference includes a free lunch for all attendees that costs about $2,000 and speakers’ fees that can run as high at $7,000.

In spite of the gift, Hoem said he has had the students have continued to raise funds for the additional buy-in that the experience brings. In the past, they have conducted car washes, bake sales, cake walks, door-to-door solicitations in their hometowns and donations from their parents.

Over the past 10 years, the conference has won accolades from professionals including Major Lynna Speier, commander of the Mount Rushmore Army ROTC Battalion, and Dr. Tom Perkins, area coordinator with Florida State University’s College of Social Work.

Hoem said Speier told him that the CSC SW 435 conference about sexual assault was the best one she had ever attended in her Army career. Perkins asked permission to model a September 2018 symposium he organized in Scottsbluff on the CSC conference.

“An official at Fort Meade was so impressed with our conference last year that he encouraged even more of his staff to attend this year,” Hoem said.